All literary and artistic works in the world serve the interests of their creators. Against the backdrop of the restoration of capitalism and the rampant imperialist decadent culture today, cultural and entertainment tools have become important means for the bourgeoisie to rule the people, distort values, numb the masses, and dismantle class struggle consciousness. Video games, as an emerging form, are especially dangerous due to their profound influence on youth. The bourgeoisie is no longer satisfied with controlling ideology through newspapers, television, and films; they have gone further to build new ideological fortresses in virtual interactions. As Marx pointed out: “The ideas of the ruling class are the dominant ideas in every epoch.” In the digital age, the ruling class’s ideas are hidden within seemingly “entertaining” and “relaxing” cultural products. These products, through carefully designed game mechanics and storylines, guide players to accept bourgeois values, ignore real-world class contradictions and social issues, thereby consolidating their rule. Among these game companies, miHoYo and its series of reactionary pornographic games are the culprits.
MiHoYo, under the guise of “innovation,” “promoting national culture,” and “going global,” is essentially a “drug dealer” disguised in these skins, spreading reactionary ideas worldwide and addicting people globally to spiritual opium. Their so-called “cultural export” is not a continuation of the ideological export of the last century as claimed by the Little Pink and revisionists, but a complete departure from Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, exporting and promoting the dregs of capitalism worldwide. MiHoYo’s slogans such as “Tech geeks save the world” and “The world is at my disposal” seem to encourage progress but actually instill individualism, genius determinism, and elitism detached from the masses. Their fundamental purpose is to make the younger generation lose their direction of struggle in fantasies and consumption, knowing only self-interest and climbing up to become “elites,” unaware of the masses. As Lenin pointed out: “The bourgeoisie uses every possible means to deceive the people, making them addicted to religion, alcohol, gambling, and various entertainments to divert their attention from social injustice.” The games produced by miHoYo and their globalization strategy are essentially imperialist reactionary propaganda infiltration. Their so-called “national culture” packaging is merely a harmless disguise to gain profits, making them appear “kind,” but in reality, it conceals control and brainwashing of proletarian and petty-bourgeois thoughts. This also confirms the saying: “Capital fears no profit or too little profit just like nature fears a vacuum. Once there is proper profit, capital becomes bold. With 10% profit, it ensures widespread use; with 20%, it becomes active; with 50%, it takes risks; for 100%, it dares to trample all human laws; with 300%, it dares to commit any crime, even risking the gallows.” MiHoYo hides exploitation and reactionary poison under the “entertainment” skin, making real-world class oppression invisible in the virtual world, so the oppressed no longer realize their oppressed state, which is the most dangerous anesthetic for the masses. Moreover, everything miHoYo does is to help imperialist propaganda and cheat money from players. Their games such as “Genshin Impact,” “Honkai Impact 3rd,” and “Zenless Zone Zero” adopt a “free-to-play, pay-to-win” model, essentially inducing people to first become addicted to electronic opium, then continuously extracting money from the masses through “gacha” and skin purchases. I myself was once addicted and lost 30,000 RMB. MiHoYo’s pay-to-win system is a mechanism that implants exploitation into cultural entertainment forms. Marx pointed out in “Capital”: “Capital comes into the world dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” In miHoYo’s products, capital even decorates “blood” and “dirt” as “cute,” “fantasy,” and “freedom,” numbing the masses and making them repeatedly invest money, ending up with nothing. Furthermore, miHoYo continuously promotes its “cultural export” through capital mergers and multinational cooperation, claiming to be the “global expression of Chinese culture,” but in essence, its so-called “Chinese culture” covers its fundamental service to revisionist international monopoly capital. This “export” is a comprehensive distortion of a nation’s image by capitalist culture. MiHoYo fully aligns with imperialist ideological standards in constructing cultural values; its so-called “national style” is merely a money-making gimmick. Through settings like “Liyue” (ancient China) in “Genshin Impact” and the portrayal of “Chinese culture” in the “Honkai” series, miHoYo turns excellent traditional Chinese cultural elements into something where Chinese people are depicted as only knowing to submit to “gods,” only knowing to wear incomplete and revealing clothes on the streets, completely detached from Chinese history, transforming it into decorations freely manipulated by capital. The Chinese people have historically had a spirit of resistance—from the Zhou dynasty’s popular uprisings, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, to peasant uprisings like Huang Chao, Han Lin’er, Liu Futong, Fang La, Gao Yingxiang, and Li Zicheng—all proving this point, yet miHoYo distorts this. This so-called national culture by miHoYo essentially commodifies traditional culture: first to cater to Chinese players to make them spend money, second to cater to Western players’ desire for “exotic Eastern charm” to make them spend money. MiHoYo does not promote national spirit but serves capital interests, turning national culture into a tool to make players spend money. Besides profiting from Chinese culture, miHoYo also incorporates Western and Japanese cultures into games to earn money in the opposite direction. For example, “Zenless Zone Zero” is filled with American-style dystopian sci-fi backgrounds, American street culture elements, and Japanese subculture aesthetics, causing youth to become obsessed with “international style” and “coolness,” thus addicted and losing their money and thoughts. Chairman Mao clearly pointed out in the “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art”: “Literature and art should serve the broad masses of the people, serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers.” MiHoYo’s products obviously violate this basic stance; their cultural content is not created for the working people nor serves their needs but serves imperialist reactionary values and their own wallets.
The editorial department of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association once criticized the game “Plants vs. Zombies” for vilifying revolutionary people and glorifying imperialist arms dealers. Similarly, multiple characters in miHoYo games, such as “Paimon” and “Zhongli,” play roles as ruling class enforcers and their henchmen, spreading the concept of “sacred order,” reinforcing the legitimacy of class oppression. The “gods” setting in “Genshin Impact” stigmatizes the power of the masses as “chaos,” granting the ruling class the “mandate of heaven” justice, mirroring imperialist logic to maintain the existing order. Players in the game often need to slaughter proletarians to maintain the regime through terrorism, showing miHoYo’s intention to brainwash Chinese youth to actively help revisionists suppress proletarian resistance. It can be said that works like “Genshin Impact” are not only “cute” and “exquisite” in form but also subtly indoctrinate youth to accept bourgeois-led “order” concepts, blurring friend-enemy lines and historical direction. Chairman Mao long ago pointed out: “Reactionary literary and artistic works are meant to make people depressed and yearn for a slave life.” Today’s capitalist society judges by appearance, and miHoYo exploits this to stigmatize the proletariat and beautify the bourgeoisie. For example, the proletariat in “Genshin Impact” is depicted as monstrous, causing players to dislike them, while reactionary counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie are portrayed as “handsome and beautiful,” drawing players closer to the bourgeoisie rather than the proletariat, thus serving revisionist purposes.
The widespread dissemination of miHoYo games has caused serious impacts among youth—addiction to games, consumerism, cognitive degradation—all direct consequences of being brainwashed by capitalist reactionary literary and artistic works. The so-called “otaku culture” and “2D faith” are chains locking the masses in factories and schools for exploitation and brainwashing. Lenin pointed out: “Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.” We must build a truly proletarian cultural front and struggle front. We cannot stop at criticism; we must propose tasks for revolutionary literary and artistic construction. Chairman Mao pointed out: “The literature and art of the masses serve the masses.” We need works that reveal class contradictions, inspire mass struggle, and spread Marxism-Leninism. We need games that help youth escape illusions and join the struggle, literary and artistic works combined with struggle as new “cultural weapons.” Today, opposing miHoYo-style “digital capitalist culture” is not just a literary front issue but an important part of the entire proletarian revolutionary movement. We must teach the masses to throw electronic opium into the trash, deeply study Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, move toward reality, toward the people, toward struggle, turning keyboard talk into real revolution, turning virtual fantasies into practice overthrowing bourgeois rule! “Cut down all idols, smash all theocracies,” “Be resolute in criticizing and exposing enemies, pointing out their inevitable failure and brutality; unite and criticize allies, praise the correct, criticize the wrong, reactionary, counterrevolutionary, and anti-people, while continuously educating and reforming the petty bourgeoisie to obey the Communist Party.” This must be advocated by proletarian literary and artistic works.
A comrade on a forum (name forgotten) once pointed out: “Imperialist countries, to suppress mass resistance, adopt a ‘divide the masses’ strategy, vigorously maintaining the patriarchal system where half the men oppress half the women.” As he said, miHoYo’s games not only serve bourgeois interests politically but also reflect typical bourgeois patriarchal ideology in terms of gender. Female characters in games like “Honkai Impact 3rd” and “Genshin Impact” are often highly sexualized, using revealing clothing, exaggerated body curves, and stereotypes like “shy” and “submissive” as commodification means. These female characters often cannot assemble a complete outfit, with prominent sexual features like breasts and hips larger than their heads. Our great women are thus slandered in such a way. Why? Merely to satisfy the perverted bestial desires of low-level men and gain profits, helping revisionists maintain patriarchy.
These commodified “female characters” do not represent real women but are products of male-dominated society fantasies, shaped by capital into tradable commodities, embodying the “electronic brothel” (where low-level men buy pornographic skins and characters through spending) in bourgeois cultural industry. This character design reflects alienation under capitalism: working women no longer labor but are twisted into “sexual tools” for men, completely detached from their real labor and social value. Lenin pointed out in “On the Tasks of the Youth League”: “Communist morality serves to overthrow exploitation and serve the interests of the working people.” This profit-making by selling female body images is the embodiment of capitalist objectification of everything, even humanity itself, and the complete moral decay of the bourgeoisie, proving the truth that either capitalism perishes or humanity perishes.
Chairman Mao emphasized during the Yan’an Rectification Movement: “Women hold up half the sky.” Women are an important part of revolutionary forces, driving social progress, not commodities for male consumption. MiHoYo’s propagated cultural concept of “women as sexual consumption” is part of imperialist ideological poison, corrupting the revolutionary consciousness of the masses. It cultivates a generation of men who see women as tools to satisfy virtual fantasies, not comrades in struggle; it also causes female youth to become anxious about “appearance,” “figure,” and “submissiveness,” even leading to today’s “servant-beauty” phenomenon.
We must be clear: video games, especially 2D games, are one of the most insidious ideological controls of youth by the bourgeoisie in the new era. Packaged as “cute,” “beautiful,” and “fantasy,” their essence is pornographic, depoliticized, objectifying women, covering up class and gender contradictions, a cultural poison that must be thoroughly purged.
Proletarian literature and art must completely eliminate the infiltration of “electronic brothel” culture and establish new literary values centered on gender equality, collectivism, and the glory of labor. Future revolutionary literary works must shape true proletarian female images—fighters, strong and brave, with collectivist spirit as workers and warriors. As Chairman Mao said: “Women are a great social force.” We reject being deceived by the distorted female images presented by miHoYo and reject the exploitative capitalist empire built on women’s bodies.
In summary, miHoYo has completely violated correct values and is entirely reactionary and counterrevolutionary poison. MiHoYo and its master, the revisionists, will inevitably be swept into the dustbin of history. The proletariat will overthrow capitalism with the momentum of autumn winds sweeping fallen leaves!